Back to the Present
"Yeah, that's exactly what went down," Jiwon drawled, sinking deeper into the couch with a slurp of green boba. He rolled his eyes toward Damien. "Your story is nothin' compared to mine."
Damien's eyebrow arched. "Whatchu mean?"
Jiwon sat up, grinning despite the old sting still buried in it. "My entire high school thought I was gay. Well — some of it." He turned to the camera, arms crossing. "Let me unpack it."
---
Han Jiwon's Past
Jiwon was straight — always had been — but nobody at Lincoln High believed it, least of all his friend group. He skipped down the hall one afternoon, waving at a cluster of girls. "Heyyy, queens!"
Sarah, the ringleader, lit up. "Jiwon! Guess what — we hooked you up with Tyler. Isn't that the cutest?"
Jiwon blinked. "But... I'm not gay."
The laughter died. Sarah scanned his outfit — the fit she'd hyped every day, called fire, called flamboyant — and her face soured. "Then what's with the getup?"
It escalated fast. Someone accused him of using their friendship as cover to see them naked, of "pretending" the whole time. Jiwon tried to explain — he genuinely hadn't understood how any of it looked — but nobody was listening anymore. A slap came first. Then a boyfriend showed up swinging, and Jiwon went down hard enough that he didn't get back up until it was over.
Home wasn't better. His mother, who'd raised him steeped in her own resentment toward men, blamed him outright for what happened — told him it was his fault for being male at all, and to get out of her sight. His sisters wouldn't look at him.
He confessed all of it to no one, and by the next dawn he was just another shape on the frostbitten bench behind the school, next to Damien.
---
Back to the Present
Damien nodded slowly. "Damn. Still — kinda your bad, dude."
Jiwon nearly choked on his boba. "My bad? I lived the blueprint my mom scripted for me!"
"I mean." Damien shrugged. "Even day one with us you radiated gay. All that hair."
Jiwon rolled his eyes as a donation chimed through the stream.
*STEPONMERENJI donated $5: "I'm not sure whether to pity you or say it was your fault."*
"BRUH?!" Jiwon stared at the camera, then exhaled, settling. "It's history, though. The girls owned their mistake, I apologized for the misreads. I ghosted my mom and sisters — been happier since." He glanced at Damien. "You never told them your family situation."
Damien met the camera. "My dad's rotting in a cell. Got my mom therapy, a new house, a car. She's good now." He turned back to Jiwon. "Your turn, pretty boy."